Recording of Wild Animal is Pilot, from the back garden, August 12th 2022. It has been a tough summer at times, troughs, self dismantling... though there are glimmers, good people reaching out.

what have i learned but

nothing
nothings
somethings about nothings
like

heart is wild animal
wild animal is pilot

life is absence much as presence
names stones sticks
missyous that will be strewn across your scape like erratics
cavern deep rope narrow
one day bow, next day arrow 
some verses will be supermarket queuing to buy
discounted cleaning spray
words may not mean tomorrow what they mean today
but breathe 
and dig for ones when you feel strain to say
though we know tune can
matter more than the words that we sing
and important things that sting happen when we are away 

water can shimmer and glint and take our weight and
contain everything we meant and
hold us in and hold us up if we stroke stroke stroke
past the depths where we sank or 
the shores where we broke


and from distance many things are pretty but touch is more true
and through it parts of me are parts of
you

and then
we seek solitude and we let it grow
teeth that chew loneliness into 
this coat rack we name soul
but shadows are never quite the
whole
you may not be tomorrow who you are today 
this is the way

light will play on the surfaces and 
we will dream forwards and backwards 
and love is wild animal
and wild animal is pilot

Poems VI

Wild Animal is Pilot

Short Story 'A Fairy Gust' as recorded by its author Donal Kelly in June 2017. Image is "Ejiri in the Province of Suruga", by Katsushika Hokusai, which, along with a photograph by the Canadian Photographer Jeff Wall, called, 'A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai)',helped inspire the story. Some information about a Fairy Wind, from Irish mythology, can be found here: http://www.irelandabroad.com/blogs/PostView.aspx?pid=4407, though its use in the story was based on a conversation and this information was NOT used. Jeff Wall's image can be seen here: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/wall-a-sudden-gust-of-wind-after-hokusai-t06951

A Fairy Gust: Short Story by Donal Kelly

Short Story about things that John R. Clancy thinks about while he fails at things during a day in June.

Written June/July 2017. I wanted to try something vague and vaguely ostentatious, full of the clatter of mind, and yet with a slight narrative. Found this tough and no idea how well it works.

A Day In The Failures Of John R Clancy

It seems that we are more engaged in tearing down than building up, more prone to outrage than empathy, where sharing slices of your self as you see it provokes ridicule not respect. But your dreams may indeed be obscene: the actual dreams that play while you sleep. Dreams, ideals, where do they meet? I imagine a winter of the will where we do not fully understand the machinations but we suspect they do not care for us. Maybe they cannot care for us? The sea doesn't give a damn about me.

The 404 Stories

Cutouts

We are born willing, eager, voices wailing, fire lit inside. Conatus. And maybe too every morning, we wake that way, back to the basics. But are heckled by time, harassed by our becomings, tossed up by whatever sea we swim. It's not easy to stay hungry. It's not easy to stay open.

Born Willing

Battleroad. Demo. Haven't written much lately. Had recorded this as a scrap of melody while mumbling along with "bad 'ol road", and was humming it in a dream last night. So I had a go at sticking lyrics to it. Had already been thinking about it as a 'battle road', and fed in US vs THEM and the murky journeys of refugees and how zero sum views of tend to frame the narrative. The recording is poor. Must try harder. We all have our road- how many are battles?

Adlib

Battleroad (demo)

Original... If only that were synonymous with good! I think my songwriting may be maturing, but I suspect I am just getting older. Learn more about this song here: http://donalkelly.com/?p=1901

Good Together

Acoustic Demo of song based on repeated graffiti put up on walls in Galway City, "I'm not well... Please talk".

Gob and the Gusto

Please Talk

Commune with fleeing shadows that flow under the floor boards. Something's loose under my skin. Here we go again.

Tern

Deep Blue Eyes

Simple acoustic song about there being uplifting details even on dark days.

Donakello

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